The American Retirement Advisor
Retirement should feel like freedom, not a puzzle. The American Retirement Advisor is your daily dose of straight talk on the three decisions that shape every retirement: your healthcare, your income, and your inheritance plan.
Each episode is a short, focused read of our latest article, drawn from real conversations with real families at American Retirement Advisors in Scottsdale, Arizona. No jargon. No sales pitch. Just the kind of advice you'd want from a trusted friend who happens to do this for a living.
Hosted by Ian Schaeffer, author of Medicare Made 123Easy, COO of ARA, and founder of 123Easy Studios. Articles read by Betty.
American Retirement Advisors has served over 14,900 families since 2001. Featured in Forbes, a 4-time America's Select Financial Advisors honoree, a 3-time Inc. 500, and a Nextdoor Neighborhood Favorite.
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Read the full articles at https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/
Episodes
226 episodes
What's your worst-case year? What the Letter Leaves Out, part two
What the Letter Leaves Out, part 2. The plan letter lists an out-of-pocket maximum. It does not add up what a bad year costs you all in: the premium, Part B, the medical limit, and the drug cap. An engineer does the arithmetic with 2026 and 202...
Did your plan add a deductible? What the Letter Leaves Out, part one
What the Letter Leaves Out, part 1. The plan letter is supposed to show what changed, and this week we read one that did not show either deductible. For 2027, more Advantage plans in Maricopa have a medical deductible, and drug deductibles can ...
What we learned when the 2027 Medicare plans came out
Healthcare in Retirement. Since the 2027 plans went live on October 1, our team has pulled every plan in Scottsdale and Las Vegas to get ready for next week's client workshops. More deductibles, higher out-of-pocket limits, a $700 drug deductib...
A bigger number is not a clearer number. Take-Home Notes
Take-Home Notes. What yesterday's Medicare workshops taught us. People holding their plan letter still had not caught that things were changing, Medicare.gov is not showing doctor matches for 2027 yet, and the numbers on the screen only help if...
Which one are you? Take-Home Notes, part five
Take-Home Notes, part 5. The workshop's last section sorts the room into three groups: not on Medicare yet, on an Advantage plan, or on a Supplement with a drug plan. What each group does this fall, the six questions to ask anyone who offers to...
Medicare.gov, live: searching 2027 plans. Take-Home Notes, part four
Take-Home Notes, part 4. This morning Medicare.gov switched to 2027 plans, and the workshop's live demo walks the search click by click. How to search drug plans and Advantage plans, the notes-sheet grid, what the little tooth means, and what t...
Plan letter came. What can you change? Take-Home Notes, part three
Take-Home Notes, part 3. Plan letters are due today, and the workshop's calendar slide answers the next question: which Medicare window is yours, what you can change between October 15 and December 7, what happens if you do nothing, and the one...
Which four words decide your Medicare bill? Take-Home Notes, part two
Take-Home Notes, part 2. Copay, deductible, network, and maximum out-of-pocket. The workshop defines these four before anything else, and each one is hiding in the plan letter on your counter. What each means in Medicare's own words, the 2027 n...
Which of Medicare's two paths are you on? Take-Home Notes, part one
Take-Home Notes, part 1. The workshop's opening section, in print. Medicare starts with one foundation, there are five ways to build on it, and most people end up on one of two paths. Plus why your mailbox is full: hundreds of companies sell th...
Which Medicare situation is yours? All eighteen, sorted
Healthcare in Retirement. Eighteen tricky Medicare situations on one page, sorted by what is going on in your life: still working, served, a letter in the mail, a clock running, a surprise bill, two addresses, AI, and the phone. Find yours, the...
Can an AI read my Annual Notice of Change for me? Five prompts
Healthcare in Retirement, part 18. Your plan's Annual Notice of Change arrives by September 30, and an AI assistant is good at reading it with you. Here are five prompts to type in order, the privacy rule that comes first, and the three places ...
Is that call really from Medicare? Open Enrollment calls
Healthcare in Retirement, part 17. Open Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and the calls come with it. Medicare says it will never call to sell you anything, and federal rules bar cold calls from plans and agents. Who is really allowed t...
Still working at 65 for a small company? Why Medicare pays first
Healthcare in Retirement, part 16. At a company with fewer than 20 employees, Medicare pays first and the work plan pays second. That flips the Part B decision: skipping it risks bills the plan might not pay, not a penalty. How Medicare counts ...
Is Medicare already using AI to decide what it pays for? Arizona, now
Healthcare in Retirement, part 15. A federal pilot called WISeR now runs prior authorization for a short list of services in Original Medicare in six states, Arizona among them, through 2031. The government says a human clinician must review ev...
Seven things no AI can know about your Medicare, however good it gets
Healthcare in Retirement, part 14. An engineer's list. Some Medicare facts are not public yet, some are public but only county by county or state by state, and some exist only in your own file. A good AI assistant cannot know any of them, and t...
Is the AI you gave up on the same AI everyone is talking about now?
Healthcare in Retirement, part 13. It makes up sources. It gets things wrong. It argues. I hear all three from people who tried an AI assistant once or twice and put it down. Each complaint was true of the tool they were holding. Here is what h...
Two addresses, one plan, and the county line: snowbirds and Medicare
Healthcare in Retirement, part 12. Medicare Advantage is a county product. Leave the plan's service area for more than six months and the rules say the plan must drop you, with no replacement window waiting. Move for real and two doors open. He...
TRICARE For Life: what you need, what you do not, and the one bill
Healthcare in Retirement, part 11. Military retirees get coverage with no enrollment and no premium of its own, and it pays what Medicare leaves behind. In return for a career, that is right. But it rides on Part B, and Part B is the bill. The ...
Three nights in a hospital bed that did not count: the three-day rule
Healthcare in Retirement, part 10. You can sleep three nights in a hospital, in a gown, with a wristband, and be an outpatient the whole time. Then the rehab bill arrives. Here is the rule that makes that possible, the form the hospital must gi...
Same pill, same plan, different counter: preferred pharmacy math
Healthcare in Retirement, part 9. Medicare's own words: preferred pharmacies may save you money because they have agreed to charge less than other pharmacies in your plan's network. Same drug, same plan, two prices. Here is the arithmetic on th...
Open, Annual, General, Initial, Special: which window is yours
Healthcare in Retirement, part 8. Medicare's website calls the fall window Open Enrollment. The regulation calls it the annual coordinated election period. The industry calls it AEP. January has an Open Enrollment of its own, and the Marketplac...
The ANOC letter, read like a spec sheet: the seven lines that matter
Healthcare in Retirement, part 7. Every Advantage and drug plan follows the same government template for this letter, so I pulled the template. Here is the layout, the summary table on page two, the arithmetic for a made-up plan whose premium d...
Two letters: your plan is changing, or your plan is going away
Healthcare in Retirement, part 6. Two different letters are landing this month. One says your plan is changing. The other says your plan is going away. They carry different deadlines and different rights, and the most expensive mistake is treat...
Is an estate plan from 2004 still a plan? Fiscal Fridays Ep 8
Four real situations, thirty seconds each: a widow who found four accounts she never knew about, a man who sold his company and felt nothing, a couple whose plan is twenty-two years old, and three kids who will not agree. Plus Greg Frantz on th...
The Medigap door locks behind you: underwriting and the trial right
Healthcare in Retirement, part 5. Advantage plans let you switch every fall, no questions asked. Supplements do not. Nine in ten Advantage enrollees have no guaranteed right to buy one later. The 12-month trial right, the six-month window at 65...